And apparently it was Dad’s turn to speak. “And we decided that…” He looked at my mother.
She finished it off. “We’re getting back together.”
I stayed motionless and looked on with what I hoped seemed to be happiness in my eyes, while all I felt was emptiness. This idyllic picture before me was … too much. Too soon. Too perfect.
But isn’t this what I wanted?
“I hope we didn’t ambush you with this,” Mom said in a cautious voice. “How do you feel? I know this is sudden, but it also feels right to us. I’ve already quit my job in Birmingham.”
“You what?” I nearly choked on my second large sip of coffee. Mom just gave up her long-coveted tenure and was—what?—moving back to Melbourne, where academic jobs in her field and at her level were close to zero? Next was she going to say she’d be opening a coffeehouse or becoming a long-distance marathon runner?
“Oh, don’t look so terrified, Alif.” Mom laughed.
There was a stench of something burning, and a deafening white noise in my ears, not quite painful but uncomfortable. The room swam, the air moving in rough waves.
The doorbell was ringing. It took me a moment to register that.
I stood up too soon, wavering on my feet. Thankfully neither of my parents noticed—Mom had left her seat to open the door, and Dad was staring at her, his eyes not quite glazed over but … hypnotized into adoration? I was stuck trying to digest how I really felt about them back together. I never really knew the main reason they split up. There were many little reasons that accumulated into a relationship-killing avalanche, but I always suspected it was their off-the-charts competitiveness that drove them apart. They were both brilliant people working in the same field. Maybe it was all great at first, but eventually one of them must’ve gotten more of something and the other felt left out, and then it snowballed from there. And now Mom was quitting her job because of what—love? Right. Still, I tried to muster some glee at this new reality in which my parents were back together and failed. I just couldn’t swallow it, this sickeningly sweet pill.
But I had to keep it together. Tommy was now in the room. I’d missed the part when Mom invited him to have breakfast and he accepted. Fast-forward to the most awkward gathering at our kitchen table yet, where Tommy was treated like he was my long-term boyfriend. I studied his reactions, trying to catch him in any moments of WTF confusion—at seeing these doppelgängers of my parents or at being treated like the son they’d never had—but he seemed to be adjusting pretty well. A faint, distant memory unfurled in my head. Back in the oasis, when Tommy and I had been experimenting with the tablet and I kissed him, I just assumed that being with me was his “wish,” something that the tablet granted, but what if his deepest wish was something else. A family? Belonging?
Amid our pancake- and coffee-devouring frenzy, Tommy found my eyes and shrugged, as if he were trying to tell me, Well, what can you do, huh? But I couldn’t ignore that my stomach was in knots and my hands were cold and tingling.
WE ARE ALL DYING
“What’s so interesting in there?” Tommy asked when we were in his car and I, not ready to talk, was trying to look busy on my phone. I was rereading my acceptance into the USM writing program. Eventually I was going to have to mention it to my parents and my friends, but for now … I was half expecting the email to vanish. But it was still here, and now I was skimming through my writing sample that I’d sent along with my application. It had been a long time since I’d read that piece, and I remembered how it felt like it was something that ought to set the world on fire. Rereading it now just felt awkward. The piece was overwritten, dramatic, a story full of “gasps” and “gazes” and “releasing breaths I didn’t know I was holding.” I must’ve been delusional thinking this was good enough for USM.
“Alif? How about some music?” Tommy’s cheerful tone was gone. Now he just sounded concerned—his apparent default state when he was with me.
I fiddled with the radio, but nothing appealed to me. I gave up and went for Tommy’s digital player, wedged in the cupholder next to his phone. Tommy wasn’t that much older than me, but, aside from the compass watch or whatever the device on his wrist was, he must’ve possessed some kind of special immunity to the ever-present appeal of high-tech gadgets. His phone, now that I was taking a closer look, was an old model. Not a flip phone or anything, but still pretty outdated and banged-up. Plus Tommy was using a separate device to store his music. It was sweet. He was sweet.
“Knock yourself out,” he encouraged me.
I flicked through Tommy’s music collection, my jaw dropping at his highly organized folders. He had about fifteen of them, grouped by time period and then genre. My eyes landed on the very last folder, called “Alif.”
My breath hitched, and I gave Tommy a sneaky side glance. He remained oblivious. I plugged in the device, opened the Alif folder, and hit play.
When the first notes of London Grammar’s “Hey Now” started, Tommy swore under his breath and reached for the player but stopped midway, bringing his hand back to the wheel. He stared straight ahead, a red blush spreading from his ear down to his neck. “I forgot that was there,” he said.
“Should I even ask you about your secret flaming love for me?” I deadpanned amid the flutterings of my heart. Too impatient all of a sudden or maybe just latching onto any excuse not to discuss our real problems, I pressed on. “Or is it just a coincidence that you have a mix with my name on it hidden away on here?”
“You know,” he said, still not looking at me, “I’m waiting for a giant eagle to sweep down from the sky and carry me away.”
“It is pretty embarrassing indeed.”
He pretended not to hear me.
I gathered up my courage. “You know, after our kiss in the desert, I kind of suspected my giant crush on you was reciprocated. And, you know, it’s okay to admit things like that once in awhile; you don’t need to be all stoic all the time. I mean, it couldn’t just be me wishing on the tablet that made you kiss me, right?”
I was joking. Kind of. But Tommy’s blush trickled away, replaced by a sickening paleness that drained his skin of color.
In fact, Tommy didn’t just look sick, he looked … dead. Like Rowen’s apparition looked when it showed itself to me in the hotel in Dubai, invisible flies buzzing in my ears. Alarmed, I looked away, but my gaze landed on my hands and gave me something else to worry about. What I could see of myself didn’t look that great either. My skin was so pallid, it appeared paper-thin, with bluish veins showing through. I blinked it all away, the illusion fading, but slowly.
“Alif…,” Tommy was saying. “The tablet. Do you have it? Or it’s with Lori?” A quiver in his voice made me grip my bag with the tablet tighter. Briefly, his eyes traced my movement, and I wanted to stop the car, jump out of it, and run. But I knew Tommy, I reminded myself.
At least I thought I did. But did I? Did I really?
Tommy continued, “I’m only asking because maybe … it can help Minh get better.”
“Maybe,” I said. “I mean, it’s worth trying, but…” I recalled Minh’s aggressive stance on the tablet, her skepticism about what it could do. “But we still don’t really know anything about the tablet and how it works.” I was going to tell him about the tablet’s current broken state but held back, worried how he’d react.
“We’ll figure it out. I’m certain of it,” Tommy assured me, but I wasn’t buying his sudden optimism. I couldn’t be the only one weirded out by this mysterious chunk of flat rock that vibrated with power and whispered promises into our ears. I couldn’t be the only one to hear said promises.
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, moving to the first thing that came to my mind that didn’t threaten to circle the conversation back to the tablet. “So … my parents must be high on their own renewed romance, because they seem really excited about the possibility of us … dating, you know.”
“Wow. You’ve totally changed the topic,” Tommy noted. “Bu
t it’s okay, because we’re here.”
Tommy found a parking spot across the road from the hospital and, my heart sinking deep with dread, we proceeded to the reception desk.
* * *
Minh didn’t look good. If I saw only vague signs of our ordeal here and there on my own body—the burns, the veins showing through my damaged skin—there was nothing vague about Minh’s sorry state. Her eyes were the scariest part of her, dark and bottomless against her pallor. What happened to her? She’d been barely eating ever since we returned from the desert, but she still seemed mostly okay up until I saw her convulsing on the plane.
We’d gotten to Minh when she was alone in her hospital room, but the signs of her mom being nearby were there—in the half-read book left on the floor and a blazer stretched over the back of a chair by the bed. I was grateful for our good timing. I didn’t think I could look into Mrs. Quoc’s eyes and pretend like I didn’t see Minh’s deterioration.
“You look terrified, Alif,” Minh said, the croak of her voice making me flinch. “It’s okay, I’m not dead, so no need to mourn me just yet.”
Minh was hooked to an IV filled with some transparent liquid. A monitor nearby was measuring her heartbeat. Beep. Beep. Beep. Slow and steady. Alive. I approached her bed and leaned in for a hug, gently, so as not to break her. She gripped me, arms thin and pale. Her hot breath scalded my cold skin. By the time she let go, I was shivering. I felt this way around the elderly. I was ashamed to admit it, but it was what it was. Something about shriveled skin and wispy hair made my insides curl. The physical effect of seeing Minh right now was the same.
I took one of the chairs next to Minh’s bed, with Tommy occupying another. My bag and the tablet were at my feet, but even its proximity wasn’t enough to assuage my twitchiness. It didn’t help that Minh had a full-body shudder when her eyes sought out my bag and lingered on it.
“The rest of the gang is on their way,” I said, “and then we’ll be heading off to Silver Crescent for a reunion of sorts. Maybe we can have you on video-chat there or something … You look good, by the way.” I gave her a fake smile.
“Liar,” she scoffed.
I could barely contain my tears. Guilt. It was guilt. Perhaps of all of us, Minh was getting the worst end of the deal. Whatever the deal was, it had landed her in the hospital. Maybe it was because she was resisting the tablet, denying its influence, or maybe all of this was random—just me trying to rationalize events that could never be comprehended.
Without a warning, the hospital room rippled, all sound disappearing, then rushing back in, its quality improved, magnified. Beepbeepbeep. Minh’s heart monitor was going faster. Did she feel the brain-liquefying shift that had just occurred? The morning pancakes and coffee didn’t sit right in my stomach.
When Minh spoke again, the words came to her slowly, like every sound she was making cost her too much energy. “And how are you two feeling? Any strange dreams? Garbled memories?” She reached out for me, and her skin was so cold.
The hold of Minh’s hand on mine strengthened, her fingers digging in, nails drawing blood. “You died in that cave, Alif,” she said. “Lori pushed you in—it was either you or Rowen!”
It was Minh’s voice and also not Minh’s voice. It was in my head and also everywhere. The tablet was the one speaking. I was frozen, and I was melting, disappearing, starting with my feet, then my legs, and then moving up, up, up. A sand castle dried out by the sun, I was falling apart. Particles that made me into what I was were starting to forget their reasons for holding together. Minh was right: I wasn’t meant to be here; my existence was an affront to the fabric of reality.
All the fuzziness in my head solidified into stone-cold focus, and I saw it with clarity then, the image the tablet had since all but erased from my mind—Rowen’s body on the bottom of the pit. Only now it wasn’t Rowen’s body. It was mine.
“That’s bullshit!” Tommy launched out of his seat and grabbed Minh’s hand, pulling her fingers off my aching flesh. “Rowen was the one who died! Because I got to him first! To save Alif!”
Tommy’s outburst made me flinch. He’d totally snapped; this was something I’d expect of Luke, not mild-mannered Tommy. But then the meaning of Tommy’s words reached me. Tommy killed Rowen? No, no, no! That made no sense. That wasn’t how I remembered it. Rowen was on the flight home with us, and I recalled seeing him even before that, in the suite I shared with Minh and Lori in Dubai.
“But Rowen is alive!” I was shaking my head. My chest hurt. The tablet piece in my bag was pinging and I rested my hand over it, seeking reassurance. It was all Minh’s fault. She was clouding my mind with her twisted perception of things. I needed to get away from her, from this room. I picked up my bag, but a bout of dizziness swept through me, making me reach out for the edge of Minh’s hospital bed. Disoriented, once again I saw networks of dark blue veins circling my wrists and spreading in all directions.
“You’re dying,” Minh said after studying my wrists.
“We’re all dying,” I protested. “Eventually?”
“That’s true.” Minh nodded, and then, her reflexes lightning fast, she slid out of bed and rushed toward me, going as far as her IV tubing allowed. She grabbed on to my bag. Caught off guard, I relinquished my hold on the bag. In moments, Minh was holding the tablet fragment in her hands, her eyes open, unblinking, while her skin regained its glow and blush.
The hell? Minh, the nonbeliever in the tablet’s powers, had caved in?
Moving fast, Tommy reached out for the tablet. Our eyes met over Minh, and I nodded at him. He took a long breath and grabbed on to the tablet.
Minh started to scream. Full-on, deafening, horror-movie screaming that was surely going to bring nurses in here. “You have to destroy it!” Minh was crying as Tommy tore the tablet from her shaking hands. “Before it destroys all of us. It feeds on us, can’t you see? Our angst and torment as we’re dying are its food source!”
“Alif, we’ve got to go,” Tommy was saying to me as he stuffed the tablet piece back into my bag.
“We never really left the oasis, did we?” Minh was becoming calm and pensive again. She returned to the bed and pulled the covers around her tall, skinny frame, all the way to her neck despite the warm sunlight streaming through the room’s open windows.
“What do you mean?” I asked, words coming out hoarse from my bone-dry throat while Tommy urged me out of the room.
My question was swallowed by the roar of distant thunder. The room darkened ominously. Minh closed her eyes and didn’t respond. A nurse stuck his head in, eyeing Minh and then zeroing in on me and Tommy with suspicion. “Did I hear screaming in here?” he asked. Tommy shrugged away the nurse’s concern, and the two of us quickly left Minh’s room.
After giving Tommy an abridged version of the events surrounding the tablet’s being split in half, I sent a group message to Lori and the others warning them of Minh’s scary new disposition. It turned out that Lori and Rowen were on their way in to see her but had now changed their minds, driving to Silver Crescent directly instead. We could only hope Luke was going to do the same.
Despite what had happened with Minh, Lori’s mention of Rowen in her text didn’t have the same effect on me that it had in the past. The discombobulation I’d experienced ever since Rowen’s return was turning into a distant dream now. Perhaps the tablet was immunizing me to the reality rifts it was causing. Or perhaps this was just my new state of being. If Minh was to be believed, Rowen and I weren’t so different after all—both back from the dead, both alive against all odds.
IT ENDS. OR IT BEGINS.
The rain was sudden and violent, spectacular in its fury. Unexpected weather shifts were common in Melbourne, but this? This was something different.
We were completely soaked by the time we made it to the spot where Tommy parked near the hospital. It could’ve been a cute romantic moment, which, in any other circumstance, might’ve led to a kiss, but I was too consumed by what had happ
ened with Minh, while Tommy … Well, whatever Tommy was thinking probably wasn’t helping either.
“So Minh says we should destroy the tablet,” I said as we got in the car. “But the tablet’s been broken into pieces and yet it still works…” As if hearing my words, the tablet fragment in my bag vibrated with what I interpreted as anxiety. My fingers twitched, wanting to touch it—to reassure it of its safety in my keep. If Minh was right and the tablet was indeed somehow using us to ensure its own existence, what did that mean for us? An uncomfortable memory resurfaced—of Noam Delamer wandering into my father’s dig camp, skin burned into a red pulp, hair bleached white. But as the tablet’s former victim, Noam wasn’t faring too badly now, was he? But then again, there was also Alain …
“What do you think we should do?” Tommy asked, pulling me out of my thoughts as we began to drive.
And just like that, it all snapped into place. I had clarity. It was simple, really. What I wanted was for things to go back to normal, for my friends to be okay, and for us all to stick together. But could we have our pre-oasis lives back now that the tablet was among us, pulling and tugging at our heartstrings, messing with our heads—and possibly devouring us in the process?
“We need to find out what the tablet really is and what it wants with us,” I said, although the possibility of finally learning the truth filled me with uncertainty and, frankly, dread. The tablet was something out of this world; I was sure of it in the same kind of instinctual way I was also certain that the tablet was communicating with me. “Maybe it can be manipulated. Or reasoned with.”
“So your plan is to try and negotiate with a chunk of rock,” Tommy concluded.
“It’s not just a chunk of rock, and you know it.” I spared a look at my bag, half expecting it to move, but it remained still. Nonetheless, the tablet’s subtle vibrations washed over me in gentle waves. “I don’t think Minh’s theory is totally off—in fact, I’m sure the tablet has latched onto us and now depends on us for its survival. But it also saved us.”
Oasis Page 19
